Awakening
by nougatface
Summary: Female colonial America realizes that she does not like some girl calling England handsome, nor does she like the thought of someone marrying him. Other than herself.  fem!America and mild USUK, obviously


_...just wanted to say that I'm really, really nervous about this, my first story for this fandom, which has my biggest respect forever. I guess my take on this is a bit different, and I hope you will like_ _it. My excuse for America acting the way _she_ does here is puberty and of course the genderbending._

As America lay back in her comfortably soft bed and closed her eyes, before her inner eye appeared a scene that had happened today.

She had been in town, accompanied by a visiting England, she couldn't remember why they had gone there, some business of his, nothing that had sounded interesting, so she simply hadn't listened. She had been wearing a new dress, a beautiful one and probably expensive, too, but still a bit too uncomfortable and impractical for her liking. Still, it made her look as much a lady as a twelve (or was it thirteen now? How should she know?) year old girl could, and as America had stared at her reflection in the mirror, she had decided not to tell England that the dress didn't really suit her. She liked it better when he was smiling and looking at her with pride and adoration.

So, they had gone to town, walked down the road a bit together until he had stopped at some place, told her to wait outside and went in. She had stayed there at first, fiddling a bit with the frills and lace that decorated her dress and becoming more bored with every second.

It couldn't have been more than two minutes when America had heard a call from the other side of the road. "Hey, Miss!", it was, and she had turned her head to look at what must have been a woman calling someone, she wasn't sure if it was herself, but who knew. She was only a little surprised to find that it was in fact herself that had been called, by a young woman that had belonged to a group of others her age, all looking wealthy and fairly beautiful, about sixteen, seventeen years old. Welcoming what could prove to be a good distraction, America had crossed the street and had felt a smile pull her lips apart at the thought of talking to friendly people.

The five girls all wore smiles and grins in various states of amusement or excitement.

"Hello", America said politely as she had reached them, bowing her head a little, "Nice to meet you", but her grin had still been wide as she had lifted her head up again and had eagerly awaited what the girl would say to her.

All of them had returned her polite greeting, but then, it seemed, they hadn't been able to hold back anymore and had let out a few apparently suppressed giggles.

"Sorry to disturb you, miss, but we would like to"- here the girl had to turn back to her companions to shush them, as they had been overcome by yet another fit of giggles-"well, we are… we wanted to ask you about your… brother?"

She had said the last word as more of a question than a statement, but America had not bothered to explain what England was to her- that would have been much too complicated, let alone that she wasn't sure she could tell anyone. So she had just furrowed her brows and had asked, as politely as possible, "What about him?"

Because really, what could anyone want to know about him? Her _brother_, really, what was he to other people? What should other people even want from him, when he was so obviously _hers_, _her_ brother, or whatever, even visible to strangers?

Whatever the answer of this girl would have been, even at that moment America had already decided that maybe they weren't so friendly after all. When they could have picked any other topic, could even have asked her about her _dress_, they had picked the one topic that suddenly made her feel as if there was a volcano inside her, one that had maybe always been there, and was just waiting to prove itself.

"Well…", the girl had been whispering now, and if America hadn't seen wrong, she had even been making funny movements with her eyebrows that hadn't looked beautiful at all, "we'd like to know… is he… engaged? He's probably not married though, is he?"

For a moment it had seemed to America as if she was dreaming, a dream that was so ridiculous that it seemed unreal even as you were dreaming it, and she wanted to laugh. Why would anyone want to marry him? Sure, he was nice and… and… well what did _they_ know? They definitely didn't know _him_, she decided, not the way she did. For a moment America had considered telling them she was in fact not his sister, but his fiancée, but it seemed a bit too daring after all, and who could know how he would react if he found out? England could get angry over the most random things, after all. So she just asked what had been on her mind from the start.

"Why would you want to marry him?"- because she had of course been able to see that if they asked about this, they somehow had thought about themselves marrying him; which seemed ridiculous to her, really-

Another girl had answered this time, the one who had been giggling the most.

"Well, apart from the fact that you're _obviously_ wealthy"-she looked sweet enough, with blonde locks like an angel, but apparently that was not what she was inside- or maybe… "…he's so _handsome_!"

Well, _handsome_ was definitely not an adjective America would have ever used to describe England. Maybe handsome was an adjective she would never have used altogether, but alone the idea of calling him that had made her feel funny inside, like she was about to vomit maybe, but different in a way that had somehow made blood rush to her cheeks as she had remembered how soft his hair was and how fun to mess up, how its smell made her feel all warm and at home, how his smile never failed to make her smile in return and how his eyes were so fascinating that she could have stared at them for ever and ever, discovering a new detail every second, making her wish his eyes were a real place, a forest maybe, so she could walk around in them and smile forever. But that was not really what you would call _handsome_ now, was it?

"I don't know why you think him handsome, honestly. It may look like that from the distance, but really, he has the most horrible nose you ever saw. And his eyebrows! They are so thick they make him look at least ten years older than he is, if not more", America had told them, obviously lying, but still the volcano inside her had wanted something more, so she had added a spiteful "He's still better looking than any of _you_!", turned around and never looked back.

Fortunately that was the exact moment England had decided to exit the place he had been inside, and she had had an excuse to leave the place and the probably shocked women behind.

It had been swarming around her head all day long, that occurrence, but she had never found the time to really think about it. Now, though, in bed, she did.

When she was moving, occupying her mind with something else, it was easy forgetting the strange thing that had settled somewhere in her stomach. Sometimes she still felt it, buzzing and skipping around as if she had swallowed a bee or a little rabbit. But though throughout the day it had vanished again with the slightest of traces, as she lay in bed and closed her eyes it was there again, feeling just the same. Well, no, not the same. Added to the unsettling feeling of having swallowed an animal there was what felt like burning in her chest (the volcano from earlier could have caused that, she thought), and it seemed to even extend to her throat, where volcano ash hindered her from swallowing, and maybe it was even that what made her eyes feel more watery than normal.

And it was all because she could not stop thinking about those girls that had apparently wanted to marry England, somehow.

Really. Marry him. Was there anyone who would want to? Someone who was maybe really able to do it? Someone who knew him? A person who could maybe understand how it was so unfitting to call him handsome, because he was… was… so…

Definitely not here, America thought, but maybe at his place? Maybe, she concluded, feeling a bit helpless. She didn't know. Perhaps actually paying attention to what he was saying, even when it sounded more boring than dry bread, would be something she would have to do in the future.

She sighed. No, she decided, no one does. No one is allowed to.

_No one but me_,

A tiny voice somewhere inside her head whispered, and it came so unexpected that she opened her eyes as if in panic and felt her heart speed up.

Had she been her usual self and fully awake, she would probably have wondered what had turned her brain around so much that it spurted out the most weird and strangely _romantic_ things. As it was though, America was tired, very tired, and in a state where she did not have the energy to deny her subconscious (the female part, that was obviously starting to hit puberty).

And she found herself thinking that there really could be no other than herself to marry England. It was true, she thought-felt-knew- that no one really knew him like she did. It was alone herself that was even allowed to know him like that, she was sure, so _vulnerable_, and it made her proud and still sad, though she could not explain why. And really, if they were married (the thought felt odd, but she forced herself to think it through anyway), he would surely visit her more often, maybe even stay so long that his absence would feel short. Oh, suddenly, it felt as if him being with her all the time was the only thing she had ever wanted, even though she had been alone so long that she had forgot what it meant to miss someone – missing England had become so usual that America barely felt it anymore, but it had become a part of her, too, so she missed him even when she was with him, because she knew he would go away again.

Then, the age difference, of course. To any observer, there must have been a gap of about five or six years between them, her just before puberty and him just shortly after it. Their real age difference was, of course, not to measure, more than five hundred years, probably a lot more. There was a problem, she knew. She had never complained being his "little sister", and a part of her was whispering that _being something else is too difficult and dangerous_ even as her mind was fixed on marrying him. But she knew that their physical age difference, at least, could shrink, when she grew faster than him. And who knew, maybe, being a full grown woman would solve all her problems? _(What problems- where did they come from, suddenly?)_

She forbade herself to think any further about that particular topic. It made her head and her heart ache and there was a tingling inside her, somewhere in her chest, it broke through the burning, felt as uncomfortable as a drop of disinfectant to a fresh wound and made her shiver and almost brought tears to her eyes. Thinking about that marriage- thing altogether had made her sad, so she decided to just let it be and sleep, when her bed was so comfortable and she knew she was capable of pushing every unwanted thought out of her mind.


End file.
